Summary Of Bluets By Maggie Nelson

The poem Bluets by Maggie Nelson, has a progression of persona, with turning points in the beginning, middle, and end. These turning points represent the persona progressing in her views on the color blue and how she deals with her emotional trauma. Throughout the poem, she describes hardships in her life, from break ups and friends becoming paralyzed. How she copes with these hardships changes throughout the poem, and in turn, represents the progression and development of persona in the poem. The persona that Nelson develops, as well as the author herself, sees personal development which is reflected through her interpretation of the color blue and what represents the color blue. In the beginning of the poem, the author begins establish the

Nelson can first be described as angry almost, or in the least bit frustrated. In the first couple of stanzas, Nelson describes the role of the color blue in various films, particularly one of pornographic nature called Blue Movie. The movie was seized by police when released due to its nature, wasn’t released until the early 2000s. Nelson separates the act of sex from love, which can lead to the question if she was in love with her lover or just sleeping with him. This can be answered when Nelson states, “For to wish to forget how much you loved someone — and then, to actually forget — can feel, at times, like the slaughter of a beautiful bird who chose, by nothing short of grace, to make a habitat of heart” (Nelson 79). This is a rather dramatic statement, but it also implies that Nelson is describing her finally getting over her ex lover. Nelson goes on to describe change, and states “Perhaps, in time, I will also stop missing you” (Nelson 93). While thorough the final parts of the poem Nelson portrays the person as bitter, the final stanzas have a sense of longing, but she knows her life is better without him. “…I would have rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world. But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. “Love is not consolation,” she wrote. “It is light”. All right then, let me rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light” (Nelson 95). These final lines represent the overcoming of love, and seeing herself as a different person than she was when she first met her lover. The light she seeks is love and she feels as though her lover does not give her this light